* You can start charging while the boss’s meter is refilling, but not during the rest of the boss’s intro. If you release the button before the game gives you control, you lose your shot (and it’s difficult to tell when you have control, sometimes...).
** If you try to shoot and get hit at the same time, you lose your shot.

X forms a wall of crystal on the ground which stands there taking hits. It will also damage enemies that run into it. You can shoot through it. If you bump into it yourself, it falls over and breaks. Unlike the Ice Wall, you can’t stand on your own walls. (You can stand on Trilobyte’s.) When charged, the walls that X forms have life or weapon energy capsules embedded in them. This can be a good way to quickly refill your health if you are in danger. Just form a wall, then knock it over and claim your prize. This is also this game’s form of the Rush Search; depending on where you put the wall, you might pull up other objects (like rare metals) instead of the random energy. Note that you can only have one wall formed at a time; pressing the special weapon button when there is already a wall on the screen has no effect. Also you have to be on the ground to use this.

Fires a V-shaped spread shot. Anything hit by the shot is frozen. When charged, X surrounds himself with some shards of ice which circle him in spirals, and if any enemies come into bodily contact with the shards circling X, they are frozen.

Shoots large green missiles forward that explode into sphere-shaped fiery bursts when they hit something. When charged, X shoots a missile off the top of the screen; moments later, several missiles come raining back down.

Sends bursts of flames across the ground. This will go for a decent distance before it wears out on its own. When charged, the flames go in both directions from X, instead of just forward. You have to be on the ground to use this, and you can only have one fire burst on the screen at a time.

A black-purple shot circles around, homing in on an enemy and circling it tightly before dissipating. When charged, several larger bursts come out all at once, and chase after enemies for a good few seconds before disappearing.

This shoots a colorful sphere upward which bursts into rays that shine in eight different directions. Can’t be fired while in the air, which somewhat limits its positioning. When charged, this forms what are essentially fireworks: multiple bursts of the eight-pointed rays.

Creates a black hole which will draw in and absorb certain enemy shots. The ball moves slowly forward. When charged, this creates a large black hole in X’s location which fills the screen briefly, then goes away.

Shoots a short-ranged laser of lightning toward the nearest enemy. When it hits an enemy, sparks of lightning seem to stick on the enemy for a few seconds, possibly doing multiple hits of damage and stunning it. Bounces from enemy to enemy. When charged, it’s basically the same thing, only the lightning bolt is slightly bigger and forked.

This is basically the Giga Crush from other games. Press the special weapon button while not equipped with a weapon to activate this. Although it doesn’t always look like it, this hits all enemies on the screen. One use requires your entire weapon energy bar, but the Giga Crash slowly recharges its energy over time. You can actually use this to weaker effect even when the weapon meter is not full, so you don’t have to wait for the meter to completely fill to use it.

Press the special weapon button while not equipped with a weapon to activate this. While active, all of X’s abilities are increased, and the weapon meter slowly decreases. The effect wears off when the weapon meter runs out of energy. The X-Drive slowly recharges over time.

This is a large air-dash that can damage enemies. Press the special weapon button while not equipped with a weapon. You have to be in the air. A single Nova Strike uses the entire weapon meter of energy, but the meter refills relatively quickly.

Axl’s gun looks like a crossbow and shoots black-purple shots. If you fire when there are no enemies around, the shots simply arc toward the floor. Otherwise, they home in on the enemies. The arrows from this weapon actually stick briefly to walls and floors and other objects they strike, which is amusing.

This one’s fun. Axl shoots grenades that bounce to the ground in an arc, then explode. He can have up to three on the screen at once (ones that are busy exploding don’t count). This may be a guard break. Remember that Axl can aim grenades in any direction, just like all of his other weapons. Shooting a grenade upward, for example, might help you to get it to land in just the right spot.

This shoots colorful ring shots that bounce off walls and the floor and such. Quite entertaining. However Axl can only have so many shots on the screen at once, of course, so the rapid-fire aspect of this is a bit limited by that (since the shots take a while to bounce around before they disappear).

You get this when equipped with the T Breaker. Zero swings the hammer downward and slams it on the ground, producing a small shockwave.

Uses: 0

Also Known As: EnjoukyakuObtained From:Burn RoosterMotion: Down + special weapon (while in air)Appears In:MMX8

ENKOUJIN

This is a flaming down-stab. Zero seems to get one in every game. On the other hand, they tend to be universally useful. The K Knuckle’s variation (Enjoukyaku) goes diagonally down instead of straight.

Uses: 0

Also Known As: ShouryuukenObtained From:Avalanche YetiMotion: Up + special weapon (while standing)Appears In:MMX8

HYOURYUUSHOU

Zero spirals upward, and anything he hits that is vulnerable gets frozen. (Amusingly, when Yeti uses this himself, he says the same name of the attack.) When you are using the K Knuckle, this is the same attack but it gets a new (somewhat more familiar) name.

Zero vanishes for a split second, and reappears a short distance ahead of where he had been, and produces a horizontal slash of lightning. He can do this in the air too, via an air-dash. The easiest way to pull this off is to roll your thumb over dash and the special weapon buttons, hitting dash slightly before the special weapon button. Can stun enemies. When you have the K Knuckle equipped, Zero dashes forward while trailing sparks, then finishes with a vertical lightning bolt.

Uses: 0

Also Known As: SenpuukyakuObtained From:Dark MantisMotion: Special weapon (while in air)Appears In:MMX8

RASETSUSEN

Hold down the special weapon button while in the air, and Zero will hang in midair spinning. After a few seconds he drops to the ground, or you can speed this up by pressing down, down-right, or down-left while spinning to cause him to move in that direction while still spinning. When you have the K Knuckle equipped, Zero spins horizontally surrounded with purplish energy.

Zero forms what is similar to the Volt Tornado where he is standing. It doesn’t move, and Zero himself can’t move for several seconds of recovery time after he does it. The tornado-like laser beam lasts a set time. Requires weapon energy.

Uses: 0

Also Known As: RenyoudanObtained From:Bamboo PandamoniumMotion: Left or right + special weapon (while standing)Appears In:MMX8

YOUDANTOTSU

Zero stabs forward with the saber. This is a guard break attack. When using the D Glaive weapon’s version (Renyoudan), the attack changes slightly, and Zero jabs rapidly multiple times.

Zero’s Blades

Zero can change weapons, replacing his traditional saber with other kinds of energy blades. You build these weapons in the Chip Dev lab. To change to a new weapon, switch to the “Item” page of the subscreen and select the new weapon. Zero can use all of his techniques with these blades (although some of them change slightly depending on his current weapon).

Kind of a silly weapon; Zero looks ridiculous using it. This can reflect enemy shots by just standing still and letting them bounce off the shield, but since Zero gains a technique from a Maverick that gives him the same ability, I don’t use the fans much.

A ridiculously long lance with a blade on the end. This has great reach, but sometimes it misses enemies that it by all rights should have hit. It also appears to do less damage than Zero’s regular saber.

Zero has no range with this; you have to get him right up to the enemy and punch them. However, most of his special moves change when he’s using this, and his attacks seem to be more powerful than normal.

This is a huge and ridiculous-looking hammer. But it breaks right through guards as if they aren’t there. Zero seems a little sluggish with this, but no surprise there—he’s lugging around a hammer that’s almost bigger than he is.

These are permanent containers that can be used to store spare energy and carry it around until it is needed. They are reusable and can be refilled as often as necessary. To fill a tank, acquire energy when your energy meter is full, and the energy will go to your tank instead. Tanks which are not completely full may still be used, but they won’t restore much of your energy. You can also refill tanks in the Chip Dev room.

This tank operates exactly like a Life Tank except it stores weapon energy and refills weapons instead of your life energy. Quite useful particularly when you’re in fortresses or fighting boss battles.

These are the P-Chips or Bolts of this game. Gather these to build things in the Chip Dev room. The different sizes and colors are worth different amounts of metals. (These might be “Force Metals” from Command Mission but the game never uses that term.) Note that the big white ones are “rare metals” which unlock items, below.

I’m not sure what the official name is for these since the manual doesn’t mention them, but the multicolored gems recover some of your AT gauge when you pick them up. This is a quick way to get to Double Attack mode if you’re not there already.

Finding these items hidden in stages will allow you to build new items, below. Some rare metals look like large white versions of normal metals; others are dull cylinders—these unlock items for Zero. (I have no idea why they look different...) Note that you will not find rare metals on the “Easy” difficulty mode.

This is a robot walker than you can get into and maneuver around. The Ride Armor can destroy blocks by punching them or by landing on them. It can also destroy enemies by landing on them, and it is invulnerable to most enemy shots. The armor has a dash, an air dash, and two attacks: a punch (can be charged), and a lightning ball which temporarily stuns enemies. Use this on enemy Ride Armors in particular. When you are in a Ride Armor and get hit, the armor takes the damage, rather than your character, but after the armor suffers too much damage, it will be destroyed. (You’ll notice it flashing before this happens.) To hop out of a Ride Armor, press Up and Jump.

The effect that this one seems to have is that the game gives you more time between hits to still be considered a combo. Basically this means you can afford to hunt down enemies over greater distances or spans of time and still add hits to your combo. Note that this has nothing to do with Zero’s saber. Adding slashes to your saber is done using Saber Skill items.

After you build this, just walking around will cause you to get metals, as if you’d picked up an item. Roughly every 8 steps you gain 24 metals. You have to be walking, not dashing or jumping, for this to work.

If you have this item and you touch spikes, instead of dying, you are reduced to 1 health and start flashing as if you’d just taken a hit. Get off the spikes fast because if your invincibility wears out you will simply die. Afterward, switch out that character and let him recover some of his health back. Each Prickle Barrier can only be used once, and you can only carry one at a time.

These items add moves to Zero’s slash combos. What this means is you can keep tapping the button rapidly and Zero will perform additional moves after the standard three. This also helps keep him vulnerable less. Only works with Zero’s default saber.

Ignore what the game says about this one. What it really does is restore some energy to your weapon meter whenever you take a hit. When coupled with the power-up items that cause your character’s lost health to turn all red (such as X’s red armor), you can use this to easily restore weapon energy. Just let an enemy hit you intentionally, over and over, until your weapon is full, then switch out and let the character regenerate the health back.

While using this, X’s normal shots turn into miniature blue super-shots, and his super-shot turns into a laser. Also, his half-charged shots are about the size of his normal buster’s fully-charged shots, and they are guard-breaks.

Halves X’s damage, and removes his recoil. In other words, he just takes damage and flashes and keeps going. Sometimes you won’t even notice that you suffered damage. Note that with this armor, 100% of the health that X does lose turns red. What this means is, in most cases, no matter what kind of damage X suffered, you can switch him out and he will recover back to full health. X becomes practically invincible with this with correct use.

Any hit that X takes which would normally do less than 2 or so units of damage is negated. X still reels like normal and makes the usual sound effects, but he doesn’t actually lose the health. This can make him totally invincible to certain enemies which are incapable of doing enough damage in any single attack to break through this property. Note though that suffering a hit will still reset your combo counter, even if X didn’t take any damage from it.

This gives you the Dragon Punch in reference to other games in the series. Press Up plus the special weapon button while on the ground and not equipped with a special weapon. Unlike Mega Man X2 where this move was originally introduced to the X series, the punch here is not very powerful and also has no horizontal reach (which at least means you won’t throw yourself into pits using it).

Commonly called simply “X,” this robot was built by Dr. Light for reasons unknown. He fights Mavericks to aid both humans and Reploids, but an inner hatred for violence prevents him from being as good of a Hunter as he could be.

Sigma is one of the Reploids Dr. Cain built from information gleamed from X himself. After going Maverick, Sigma has apparently determined that the human race is inferior to Reploids and must either be enslaved or killed. Like a persistent bug, he always returns even after he is defeated, usually in a new form, since though his bodies are defeated, apparently his programming continues to live on to cause more damage.

A Reploid researcher, Alia helps the Maverick Hunters by being their spotter and giving information to them on the field. As a navigator, Alia offers details about key features of a stage and the stage’s boss room.

This fight takes place in deep snow. Yeti throws shards of ice at you; you can shoot these to destroy them. After the halfway point, Yeti spends a lot of time going under the snow and then bursting back out. Just air-dash out of his way and then blast him on the way down. For his ultimate, he creates giant snowflakes which gradually drift downward. These can be destroyed too. Make lots of use of the walls.

He forms bamboos from the ground (that you can climb) and drops missiles out of the sky (watch the shadows to see where they will land). He also tosses chunks of...er, stuff that moves in an arc and explodes when it lands. The panda is huge and it’s difficult to jump over him. Most of his attacks knock you over, so be careful. In fact, just getting too close to his body will knock you over. His ultimate attack is a charging punch—stay far away from this one. For best results, keep hitting him with fire over and over. X can send fire along the ground (even while the panda is invulnerable from the last hit) and then focus on dodging while the fire crawls across the floor toward the panda.

He flies a lot, then will drop down and toss a burst of fire from the flame on his head, or set the ground on fire. He also does a bounding kick from one wall to another. At the halfway point, he goes into the background and makes the platforms that form the floor start to move up and down. You can’t shoot him while he’s back there, but when he’s done, he’ll come back to the foreground and resume the battle. His ultimate attack involves him standing invulnerable in the center of the room, and he breathes fire first on one wall, then on the other. Avoid it by standing behind him. The fire stays behind even after he turns vulnerable and starts attacking again.

He throws small black-purple shots which move similar to a boomerang, but instead of returning to him, they circle around. He can also grab you, doing multiple hits of damage (you can escape with the Tag Assist). After the halfway point, he starts bounding back and forth across the room. His super attack involves him hovering in midair, and he slashes with a huge sword that covers half the screen. First he slashes on one side of the screen, then the other, so to dodge it, you have to be standing on the far side of the screen opposite of where he is slashing.

You have to knock him out of his shell using a guard-break attack to do any damage. Using the weapon he’s weak against can destroy the shell altogether. If you don’t destroy it, he will return to his shell when he gets a chance. Trilobyte shoots orbs which travel at an angle and bounce off the walls and floor and such (and they bounce off his Crystal Walls too). X’s Squeeze Bomb sucks up Trilobyte’s shots. Trilobyte’s ultimate attack sends purple walls rapidly toward you similar to the mini-game earlier in the stage. Note that X’s Squeeze Bomb won’t go through Trilobyte’s Crystal Walls, but naturally Axl’s form of the weapon does since it pierces all objects.

This fight takes place on a floating platform, so be careful not to fall off. He swoops back and forth (put up a Crystal Wall and he will swoop right into it, heh), and shoots electricity which only covers a preset distance in front of him. He can also form those jellyfish things around him that he was using during the stage; just shoot these. For his ultimate attack, he covers almost the entire platform with lightning bolts. You can dodge this by looking to see where the little blue flames are on the ground right before he fires...and stand somewhere else, of course. Note that Zero is pretty easy to use in this battle if you have his Rekkyoudan, because any normal slash you make is considered a weak point for Man-o-War.

He forms big blocks and then tries to get them to fall on your head. He can also pick up the block and throw it at you. Uh, don’t let it land on you. Climb the wall to avoid it. At the halfway point, he forms what looks like a black hole in the center of the room, and can toss small green spheres. The green spheres are like gel that will cling to you. The black hole will absorb certain shots, drawing them into the hole. It also blocks your shots like a solid object, even if it doesn’t suck them in. Antonion’s ultimate attack forms a bunch of big blocks which drop from the air. They don’t kill you instantly if they land on you, but they can hurt. Dash out of their way.

He sounds like a girl, but the game calls him a he, so what can you say? Sunflower fires weird lasers that are blocked by the platforms in the room so you have to make strategic use of them to dodge it. He can also form spheres which bounce slowly around the room. If one catches you, it grabs your character and carries him with it as it bounces around the room. You can Tag Assist it away. His ultimate attack is “Earth Crush” (I think he says) which is the laser that Zero uses. The small purple beams track you, then the blue laser comes down, so just keep moving and it will miss you.